Letting Agent Contract Assignment

[Hank D]

As a landlord the original letting agent I signed terms with were subsequently bought out by first one company, and then later by another company. This means my original agreement has been 'assigned' twice but the original agreement does not mention what should happen in the event of company takeover.

I am not happy with the current agent and want to cancel the relationship but keep the tenants and appoint another agent. The original terms stated that I will still need to pay the agent fees if the tenants are retained after termination. The current agent terms also state this, although I have never been requested to sign a new contract with them.

Question: is there any legally binding contract/agreement in place between me and this 2nd company that will make me liable for their fees, even though they did not introduce the current tenants to me?

[jpkeates]

There's no simple answer to this.

There's no reason to think that the contract was "assigned", when the companies were purchased, it's quite possible that they still exist and are simply owned by someone else.

More to the point, you've continued to behave as though there's some kind if agreement between you (the agent still collects rent and passes it on to you, presumably - and you accept that) so there's some kind of agreement in place, even if its not the one you originally signed.

However, an agreement that you can't terminate is probably unfair (at least in parts) and one that penalises you for doing something is also not necessarily fair.
However, you can't simply decide that it's not fair and expect the agent to go along with that without making some kind of claim.
I'd suggest talking to the agent and agreeing to pay something to end the agreement, maybe equivalent to some month's fees as compensation.

If they have the deposit protected, you want to make sure that you have that in hand, and check the tenancy agreement to make sure there's nothing in it that won't work if the agent isn't involved (for example, some agreements specify where the rent is paid and you need to be ready to advise the tenant of any changes to the agreement).